<p>After I saw the Stanford EA decisions, I decided that I’m not g oing to apply there. Just not worth the time to write all those essays and get rejected regardless. Re-thinking Yale. Harvard is only there as a crapshoot.</p>
<p>I am reading many of defer/reject postings posted by familiar names who had amazing stats…totally breaks me. Glad I am not a senior yet and hope I could be put in a coma or something during the agonizing waiting hours next year…</p>
<p>@Radddd: MIT is not your school?</p>
<p>Nope. MIT is too crazy for me.</p>
<p>Stanford always has those weird EA decisions; happened last year too I think.</p>
<p>Research paper? Mind if I take a look? I’m into economics as well. My god, I’d never even attempt to do research until junior or senior year in college. You must a prodigy.</p>
<p>Putting it this way: Unless you’re not applying for financial aid, the chances of getting into a US university are slim. They all have limited financial aid, even the Ivys for international students (with the exception of Harvard, they’ll give as much money as needed because they have couple billions of dollars in their endowment). As mortals, unless you’re insanely smart, we’re probably not going anywhere. No offence to anyone.</p>
<p>Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia are all need blind to Canadians. If it’s not need-blind, yes your chances are gutted if you request FA (but not impossible). </p>
<p>@ExhibitA
I’m no prodigy. My school has seen smarter kids pass through its halls. One kid had a top 6 avg of 100% (finished with a 45 in IB), ranked in the top 200 in the world. And the research paper originally started off as my extended essay, but I got into contact with a prof to mentor me, then another prof wanted to help out too. Then it just sort of exploded. It’s more economic history too (didn’t have time to do any modeling to focus on straight economics). Anyway, the final copy still isn’t finished, still in the drafts.</p>
<p>@nirvanatear
lol can’t believe you’re here as well!! I’ll PM you. =D good luck on all of your app’s.</p>
<p>What’s the level of quantitative skill demanded by your research?</p>
<p>Deferred from Yale! it means i probably have to take my damn SAT subject tests again UGH lol</p>
<p>oh well it could have been worse…</p>
<p>^ Exactly… Still, I feel awful for u and all others who got &#$% news.</p>
<p>Got rejected. Pakalypse and I have almost the same scores…so now I got to find whats glaringly wrong with the rest of my application…oh what fun. Time to actually start finishing up the rest of my apps. </p>
<p>Reading love song of j. alfred prufrock really helps you deal with rejection. Nothing is gained from not trying. Just glad I even got the chance to apply.</p>
<p>And for my research, it’s basically reading (a lot…trust me), knowledge of a few languages (had to translate a few primary sources from French), and some playing around with modeling (mentors helped out there). It was mainly historical so a great deal of quantitative skill wasn’t really needed per se.</p>
<p>“Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia are all need blind to Canadians. If it’s not need-blind, yes your chances are gutted if you request FA (but not impossible).”</p>
<p>Regardless, Canadians with our less than par educational system are competing against people from India, China, Korea, and countries with educational systems much better than ours, making them look more attractive. Sure IB or AP look nice, but going to a school in Asia is so much more rigorous than what we receive here. And I’m betting many of the Chinese, Indians and Koreans will be applying for FA due to the lower standard of living there.</p>
<p>That just indicates the competitiveness of the international pool. Applying to FA shouldn’t decrease your chances in a need-blind environment. Your argument only exists if a quota exists for the number of students that require aid. In a need blind environment that doesn’t exist…</p>
<p>About our less than par educational system…
I really don’t think it’s that bad. Yes, we could improve but generally we’re about the same as the US system. Even though it’s less rigorous than say one in China, I think Canadians get somewhat of an advantage in the international pool because of our similarities with the American system. The high numbers of international students being Canadians (highest percentage usually) in most US schools is indicative of that.</p>
<p>damn dark, sorry to hear that… i thought your stats were pretty good,
dont worry though, im sure you’ll get in somewhere else and perhaps this can be a chance to fix up ur essays a bit… thats what im gonna try and do as well</p>
<p>Beginning to seriously wonder what it takes for a Canadian to make early admission… Sorry, darksouls.</p>
<p>“That just indicates the competitiveness of the international pool. Applying to FA shouldn’t decrease your chances in a need-blind environment. Your argument only exists if a quota exists for the number of students that require aid. In a need blind environment that doesn’t exist…”</p>
<p>You’re right. It’s just the lack of need blind schools that frustrate me. And the fact that most Canadians are handicapped. </p>
<p>“About our less than par educational system…
I really don’t think it’s that bad. Yes, we could improve but generally we’re about the same as the US system. Even though it’s less rigorous than say one in China, I think Canadians get somewhat of an advantage in the international pool because of our similarities with the American system. The high numbers of international students being Canadians (highest percentage usually) in most US schools is indicative of that.”</p>
<p>The US system is just as bad, if not worse, than Canada’s. I cannot speak for many of the provincial educational system. I know that Ontario has one of the best, and BC has one of the worst educational systems. According to my math teacher, who has taught for 35 years, and has taught in post secondary institutions, BC’s math curriculum just went down the crap hole with the new curriculum coming in. THe person deciding the curriculum does not have his degree in mathematics. He has it in “Mathematical teaching”, or something along the lines of that which is full of crap when I saw the courses needed to graduate from that degree. He knows that BC students are not ready for post secondary education due to the lack of fundamentals in the BC educational system. Hell, I’m having some troubles with linear algebra right now due to my lack of background in geometry. </p>
<p>Canadians do get an advantage, I shall concede that point, due to the closeness of the relationship between USA and Canada. However, it is undeniable that Canada (and even the US)'s education are falling behind compared to the world standards; China and Korea have a much better system than we do, compared to the crap we learn here, especially in the sciences and mathematics. Regardless of admissions, Canada has to change its system sooner or later, when it realizes that most of the competent people in the fields come from Asian countries. </p>
<p>Sorry for this rant, I’m just really bitter about being screwed over because of financial issues and the probability that I probably won’t be going to America any time soon in my life.</p>
<p>@Raddd
I rather agree with you, especially in terms of math and sci education. My calculus teacher, nearly every class, makes resent-full remarks on how Cdn math is falling more and more behind while math helps us build logic in all academics. I cannot agree with him more…</p>
<p>Ever considered KAIST or some int’l programs in Korean univs?</p>
<p>Raddd, as much as I hate to argue with someone in highschool, I feel compelled to respond to your post. If you look at world rankings of how highschool students perform on standardized tests of math and english in Canada (and BC in particular), its extremely favourable (especially compared to the US). You know how to use google…look it up for yourself. </p>
<p>And while no doubt students in china, korea, etc. perform very well on standardized math tests, it is hardly enough. We struggle with admitting students trained in Asian countries into our graduate programs because they are not adequately trained in the way we need them to be. Why? Because of the pedagogy and so much emphasize on quantitative test taking, they are too weak in many other areas that are important for graduate study (e.g. the ability to think critically, to compare and contrast, to participate actively in class discussions, to apply concepts to novel problems and integrate across concepts is seriously problematic). Education is not just about test taking. </p>
<p>I can’t speak for particular details of curriculum development but it is not determined by one person. I can also add that students at my childrens’ school do extremely well on AP calculus and have had zero problem with sciences either in canadian or US universities (their HS sends a lot of students south). As far as I know its the BC math curriculum. </p>
<p>Take the word of a particular teacher, including me (I’m a professor, but same thing), with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Firstly: Standardized testing. Which ones are we talking about here? If its the SATs, forget it; no one in our school takes it except the few elite. If we’re talking about the provincials, don’t make me laugh. The government has watered down our math curriculum for the past 10 years. They also scale marks by 20-30% to curve the failing rate. How do I know this? 3 teachers in the curriculum have continually complained to the ministry about this (they’re senior teachers and head of their departments). We do the exact same as Alberta, except we have taken out all the hard parts of the math curriculum. Consider this: grade 12 math has over two weeks of REVIEW in class time BEFORE their provincial exams. That’s how badly the government has messed with the mathematical curriculum. I don’t want to compare to America: their educational system is pretty bad also. </p>
<p>I agree with the problem with Asia and rote memorization. They’re only trained to continually do problems over and over again to obtain the perfect mark. This is also a chronic problem with some of our bright korean students: one girl does not know anything about world modern events such as if we asked her what was going on in Israel, she’d give us a blank stare. She also doesn’t know how to think critically. She’s one hell of a memorizer though. </p>
<p>Yet, the problem is, Canadian schools are ALSO not giving enough time into thinking critically, nor problem solving. </p>
<p>I am taking it with a grain of salt: I know that the BC curriculum is doing a decent job with the humanities and the trades. However, by their cutting costs into our education, the BC ministry is slowly degrading our education and by cutting it down, I don’t see how Canadians will be ready to compete in this competitive world, compared to other nations who put much emphasis on their education.</p>